RENFIELD

When the Gravediggers from PARTS UNKNOWN aren’t scavenging body parts for science, they play RENFIELD for money. It’s a gambling game about parts, tools, gravestones, and bugs.

Yummy, delicious bugs.

RENFIELD was introduced in 1999 as Cheapass Games #019, a sequel to the gravedigging board game PARTS UNKNOWN. We think this game is absolutely great, a giant among trick-taking gambling games. (Are there others?) Mechanically it’s sort of a cross between Hearts (or Spades, or Pitch) and Poker (or Blackjack, or getting clubbed over the head). And it’s extremely chaotic and vicious, just like the gravediggers who play it. Yet despite its chaos and viciousness, there is a fair bit of strategy, which includes being very hard-headed.